Live Your Dreams

” A comfort zone is a beautiful place, but nothing grow there”

The one who cannot step out of their comfort zone, living a life without dream and passion which is called mentally dead, which is even more terrible than the one who is physically dead. Some of them always do not believe that they can change their destiny with a lot of different reasons, and surprisingly they can sit here for an hour and list out all the reasons why they cannot take challenge and change.

“Don’t let the fear of losing be greater than the excitement of winning” 

People always believe that they will be failed before they even get started, it is like before you run the race, you think that you will lose and you don’t get it started.  Even though you run slow, if you start your first step, you will run to the finishing point one day. However, if you never start your first step, no matter how many years later, you are only still standing at the starting point but the people around you are already steps ahead you. Sometimes you do not know what will happen ahead after you step out your first step, but these experiences can help us to build a better self and we can learn from it. If you always stand on your original spot, you can never gain any experience or understand more about yourself. The fear inside you soul, the hesitation to try will hinder you from being successful.

“As soon as you start to pursue a dream, your life wakes up and everything has meaning”

It is also very interesting to see people believe strongly that they are going to fail before they actually get started. If they have faith in believing that they are not gonna succeed, why can’t they put faith in believing that they are going to succeed? It is also stated in a research that people are generally taking negative comments than positive ones because of insecurity. When you use the time on questioning yourself to make things happen, you are gonna be successful very soon. Successful is not as far as you imagine when you are determined to start. If you are determined to step out of your comfort zone, you are many steps closer to the goal of success.

“Follow the dreams, they know the way”

Lately, after I get in touch with a lot of people, I realized that for people who are looking for change and chance, they will open their ears to anything that can make them better. However, some of them want to try a new route, but their partners, friends and family just discourage them from trying. They cannot stand firm on their belief and easily being discouraged by negative comments, which lead them back off from the try. After seeing all the successful person in the history and the one around me, I realized that in order to success, you have great determination on what you belief and just go for your dreams. disney park is built after Walt Disney died, someone said it is so pathetic that he cannot witness his dream to be built. But Walt Disney said “I can already see Disney Park in my mind” when he was still alive. It is difficult to explain your dream to others, because they are not gonna agree with you or cannot see what they see. But always bare in mind that, it is important for us to see what we dream in our mind, and that is what it matters. It is because when you can see your dreams in your head, the people around you who have dreams will be influenced by you, so never stop dreaming.

 

 

Motivation needs a spark

 

“The strongest enemy in your life that hinder you from change is you”

How many times we are so passionate in making a change in our mind, but little chance that we have brought that into action. We have fantasy picture in our mind, thinking that if I have done this, I would have blah blah blah.However, in all these time, we are in lack of a spark to bring our thoughts into action. It is because the strongest enemy in your life that hinder you from changes is you, if you can step out of your comfort zone, you can start to change.

“The greatest hold up to your healing of your hang up is you”

We always have a lot of things that we are planned to do, for example, learn something new, expand our social circle, pick up a new habit. We know that these things are good to ourselves and we “want ” to make a change. However, take these thoughts into action require a spark, which provides you enough determination and strength to make a difference. I have been thinking to start a fitness-Instagram page for months, because being fit becomes my passion and I want to motivate people around me to stay healthy and fit. During these months, I cannot take this thought into actions because maintaining a page is sort of tiring, and requires you a lot of energy. Until this week, I realized that my befit journey actually can influence people around me to pick up their fitness journey, and some of my friends message me and asked where can I gym, how can I lose weight. Even more, one of the studio re-posted my workout photo in their Instagram page, and at that moment, I felt like what I am doing is worth it and actually can make a difference to myself and to others. Although I am not qualified to say that I am a professional trainer, I feel so satisfied about my gradual change physically and mentally. You do not have to compete with others about how far you go, because you are the only one you should be responsible for, not others. Until yesterday, I summoned up my courage, I opened a fitness Instagram for myself. I do not know if I can be successful in maintaining the page, but I know that if I do not try, I can never succeed. No matter what the result is, at least I tried and paid effort, I will not feel regret in the future of not doing that.

“No amount of darkness can hide a spark of light”

Sometimes, a spark in the darkness can light up the sky and give you direction about where you should go because with a tiny spark may burst a mighty flame. Whenever you get the spark and hold on to it, it is easier for you to follow the sign of light of your journey. The beginning is the hardest part because you have no idea about where to start. Bu when you have started, the rest become easy as you know the direction of where to go. But before that, find your spark, find the passion in your life that can keep you growing and glowing. A spark can come from the people around you , the places that you have been to or the message that you have read. The more you get in touch with various things, there are more sources of spark that you can explore. Trust yourself, and trust our Father will guide us the way that we want to go, he can give us strength and faith if we put our trust on him. John 8:12-  Then Jesus again spoke to them, saying, “I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life.”

 

 

Let Go Of Your Feeling

Hang on to a balloon, when you would prefer to see it in the sky, and it’s obvious that you are not going to get what you want. Imagine yourself holding a urchin with bare hands, and you do not want to let go of the yummy urchin. The harder you hold, the more injured your hand is. Sometimes we are so stubborn to let go of our feelings and thoughts, which in terms create more pain in our heart.

Letting go pain in your life does not mean that you have to erase the memory, in contrary, you should confront the situation. Forgetting all the pain does not mean that you have overcome the difficult situation, instead you are still being hauled by that feeling. You escape from facing the problem because you know that the pain still can make you feel devastated. Some of us will turn the pain into other emotions like anger or grief to make ourselves feel better, in such a case that the problem is thrown to him/her, and I can forever be the victim. However, these emotions will cloud our mind and hinder us from recovery. Before I was so mad at my ex bf of doing a lot of terrible things to me, which I cannot even accept how he can react like this and broke all the promises. I felt heart broken and felt so mad whenever I thought of him and the words that he said to me. However, since yesterday, after I found out that we are disconnected spiritually [please refer to my previous article Connection], I suddenly had a feeling that I should completely let go of this person. Even if he come back to me, I would never ever be together with him because we are a mismatch.

By realising such a mismatch, I started to forgive what he did, not because I agreed with what he did, but because those acts mean nothing to me already. There is no point that I should feel mad towards a man who did not understand you. Before I was holding too hard, causing much pain in my heart and made myself so much wounds. When you release something, it is no longer in your grasp. When you’ve thrown a ball, you expect it to travel in the direction in which it was propelled. Furthermore, you are aware that there is nothing more that you can do to help its journey toward its destination. How well you formulate your intention can be likened to how well you throw a ball; if you do so well, it is likely to go exactly where you want. Nonetheless, it will not go anywhere if you continue to hold it in your hand.When you can truly let go of the situation, my heart is so relieved and I do not feel pain whenever I think about him because it is a proof that I have moved forward to pursue my fruitful and promising future.

“Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice”.- Ephesians 4:31

Connection

 

So, you’ve been dating for a while now. Things have been going great. You’ve laughed together. You’ve had some lengthy conversations. You have plenty in common. You’re both very attracted to each other. You think the world of each other.And yet— something isn’t clicking. You just can’t put your finger on what’s wrong. On paper it’s a match made in heaven. Still, something is just not right. What you may be missing is spiritual connection.

“We often stuck in a relationship because we are unable to let go”

When two people come together, at first they may attract each other by appearance or other sorts of things. They feel excited and fun, and they do love each other. At first, you However, you can always feel that something is missing or falling apart because you two do not have the “click” feeling. The time you spent with him is long but it is not unique; The conversation is lengthy but not deep. You like to be with him, having fun with him but you feel like he does not understand you. At first, you won’t realize that it is a big problem because you believe you can overcome this by LOVE. However, when time goes by, you realized you are not really be in the relationship and feel yourself a bit disconnected from it. In order to keep the relationship going, we will try so hard to get the “click” feeling with your spouse. The more you do, the more you realize that you two are so different.And no matter how much you do, you still cannot click into the mind, click into the soul. When two people are not spiritually connected, let alone how many efforts you paid, you cannot get the “click” feeling. To be honest, being with a person whom you are not spiritually connected with is worse than being single. Even worse, you realize that he is not the one who can share the soul with you, but you still choose to stay with him because you are not able to let go.

Sometimes we allow reason to cloud our judgment so that we are unable to become aware of our true feelings. When we be with a wrong person in a relationship,  in every second, you try to convince yourself that maybe we can click someday or it is okay that we can be lovers but not soulmates. However, from my experience, it is not gonna work. In my past relationship, I would say me and him were actually never clicked spiritually and I did not feel like he really did understand me and accept me for who I am. When I shared some deeper feelings with him, he just did not understand and hardly could we have a deeper conversation. And then, I would not talk about that topic again with him because he could not give me a constructive response. Since then, I realized that we had so many things uncommon, different values and thoughts. I started to avoid sharing these topics with him and that was the moment I started to feel we are so far away spiritually. To describe our relationship, I would say, we were the closest stranger. I was stuck in the relationship for long time as I felt like he loved me and he was good to me, and that was everything that it mattered. Until a friend of mine asked, if he is not your boyfriend, will he be your soulmate/best friend. The answer is, no. This is a very good question to think about whether you two are right person to each other and if this relationship can be fruitful.

When two person are spiritually connected together, the feeling is great, even better, you no longer feel empty in your life because he fills every part of you. If both of you are clicked, you do not need to explain things or feelings by words, because you get his/her understanding already. It is just like jigsaw puzzle, you can feel you two are exactly connected and you two complete each others’ life. With this feeling, you feel like your inside is strengthening and growing big together with your partner. LOVE will fade and loss its passion, but if you two are spiritually connected together, the relationship will be long lasting and fruitful in your life as ⁹ Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. ¹⁰ For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up! ¹¹ Again, if two lie together, they keep warm, but how can one keep warm alone? ¹² And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him—a threefold cord is not quickly broken. – Ecclesiastes 4:9-12

 

Surrender

 

The world is a battleground, there are a lot of temptations which leads to taking mistakes and walk a wrong path. We realize that what we do are wrong, but most of us tend to diminish the fault which makes us feel better. Little of us will come to surrender to God, admitting all the faults and pathetic past that we had suffered.

Yet, we surrender is a painful process. We have to dig out all of our unwanted past, revealing every single details in your life that you want to hand them into God, as we human being have no strength in dealing them by ourselves. Those unwanted past consist of some emotion that we cannot corporate with, some pathetic unchanged memories which cause us pain and the act that we have done to hurt somebody which makes us feel guilt. Tackling any of them takes time and strength to do it, and most of us will give up in the mid-way of the process because direct facing those scars made us devastated and the wounds are still there. After a month since broke up, I felt like I had gone out of the past, I could finally forget the past that I had and can move on to my new life. However, I never thought that I was not actually fully recovered. Whenever there is a trigger, I actually will get emotional breakdown easily. My sister K in church told me, the scar is still here, just the wound now is recovered in the surface, but inside is still bleeding. What I need to do is to clear the deeply rooted dirt inside the wound in order to get myself recovered. The process is painful as we need to dig into the root of the problem first, bleed first, then the wound can heal. “Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.”-Matthew 16:24-25 No matter how hard it is, I know that God will stay here with me if I can give myself completely to him.

In this period, I try so hard to change myself, through mindset to behavior. Until a point, I seem to lose a balance between creating the new path with new habits and the old one. The past is not always bad, the memories are not always torturing,  and when we are so focus on creating the future, we may have chance losing the people whom we care in the past, forgetting the good memories and experiences that we had. In order to keep getting better, I have to learn how to balance every parts of my life (my faith, my hobbies, my family, my work, my friends). If we can maintain good balance of life, we would never fall down again because all parts of my ME will inter-balance each other to make me in balance.  ^“13 Surrender your heart to God, turn to him in prayer,¹⁴ and give up your sins—even those you do in secret.¹⁵ Then you won’t be ashamed;you will be confident and fearless. “- Job 11:13-15

 

P.S. To my sister E, I want to apologize for the irresponsible action that I have made and I understand how bad it sounds like. You are one of the the important people in my life who helped me walk through the painful year, and I would never forget this in my life. With all the heartbreaking moment that I can have your accompany, and I feel so blessed that you are always here for me. You are in a place where nobody can replace, I know action speaks louder than words, and I will get better and better and better me! Love you forever 

Is the glass half empty or half full?

The expression “Is the glass half-full or half-empty?..” has for many years highlighted the tendency for two people to see the same situation in different ways. Which way you see the water level reach reflects what is your attitude towards things. Yet, for most of us, we see things in permissive way, we only see the cup is 1/2 empty instead of it is 1/2 full.

Imagine the cup is our energy, when you feel like you cup is 1/2 empty that your energy is halved in this case, you will feel yourself so tired to do anything because you are focus at the consumption of energy and you are diminishing. In contrary, when you feel like the cup is 1/2 full, you see the space to be filled with energy. In such case, you can see that yourself is getting better and growing stronger. The way of thinking actually affect what action we take. After I just broke up, it really seemed like the end of world for me and I was so reluctant to do anything. I just wanted to stay alone and lock myself in my own world and crying till the end of world and felt like I lost half of myself. However, this thought was not making me feel better, it just made me keep consuming remaining energy level until the cup is empty.

Since then, I realized I cannot be like that forever, I have to move on to my new page instead of being hauled by the past. After separated with my ex bf, I found that I have a lot of rooms for improvement to get myself become better. By change, I received god strength in helping me to fill in my energy cup. He provides me a lot of loving accountable partners in helping me get out of the shadow past, gives me strength in trying out new things, allows me to be a brand new ME. “So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”-Isaiah 41:10 When your faith is strengthening, the way you see this world and the things around you is gonna change. When you see deadend, I see opportunities; when you feel hurt, I see recovery; when you feel defeated, I see improvement. No matter under what circumstances, see things in 1/2 full cup, and you will be motivated and know yourself is improving and heading to a positive way.

Tell your heart to beat again

How long have you not felt your heart beating vigorously on someone or something? Can you still remember how great it is when you feel passionate on something, your whole body is filled with energy and satisfaction? Or have you shut your heart down after you get hurt? (I did) And after we shut the door of our heart, we prevent any emotion from walk into our heart, because it is better to feel no emotion than feeling painful in the heart.

There must be a moment when you feel like you are shattered, and your heart is broken into thousands of pieces and you feel so strengthless to pick up all the pieces back to one. Few weeks ago, my heart was in broken pieces, I felt so painful that I cannot even function normally. To make myself feel a little bit better, I stopped my heart from beating, to avoid it to get hurt again. I began to lost interest in many things, lose passion in my work and lose connection with the world. Everyday after work, I rushed back home immediately, shut myself in the room and cried for whole night. I could cry when I took bus back home, I could cry when I was watching comedy, I could cry when I was having dinner. Your tears just came out automatically from your eyes, they are like the blood from the shattered heart. Honestly, it made me feel even worse, because I felt like my whole world was collapsed and I could never go back to be the “happy” me again, I could never love someone and being loved again. But somehow, sadness has an addiction, you just cannot stop yourself from torturing yourself mentally like this and it made you feel like it is the end of the world.

“Be strong and take heart, all you who hope in the LORD” – Psalm 31:24 

By coincidence, I went to a church group on a Monday night and I still remembered the topic that night was “healing night”. At that moment, I realised that I need to be “healed” because my heart was so broken. And I made my prayer again lead by sister J after leaving, I felt my heart is connected when J touched my hand and pray. My heart felt so peaceful and at that time being, I knew that I should not stuck in the past anymore and all I need is to move on a new life, and be a better me. Since then, I start opening my door of heart bit by bit, my heart starts to beat again. When blood is gonna circulate through my body again, I have energy and motive in my life again. I start to put everything pack to pieces again, even better, I want to make it a stronger heart than before. I give my heart to our Father God, let him guide me through my healing process and allow him to live in my heart to give me courage and faith to overcome all the obstacles ahead. Whenever I feel strengthless, I pray that he can give me strength to keep going. He always gives us hope when we feel hopeless, give us courage when we feel weak and embrace us with his love when we feel lonely.

This is my favourite song these days, to anyone whose heart are broken before or now and get your heart BEAT again!

 

“Tell Your Heart To Beat Again”

You’re shattered
Like you’ve never been before
The life you knew
In a thousand pieces on the floor
And words fall short in times like these
When this world drives you to your knees
You think you’re never gonna get back
To the you that used to beTell your heart to beat again
Close your eyes and breathe it in
Let the shadows fall away
Step into the light of grace
Yesterday’s a closing door
You don’t live there anymore
Say goodbye to where you’ve been
And tell your heart to beat again

Beginning
Just let that word wash over you
It’s alright now
Love’s healing hands have pulled you through
So get back up, take step one
Leave the darkness, feel the sun
Cause your story’s far from over
And your journey’s just begun

Tell your heart to beat again
Close your eyes and breathe it in
Let the shadows fall away
Step into the light of grace
Yesterday’s a closing door
You don’t live there anymore
Say goodbye to where you’ve been
And tell your heart to beat again

Let every heartbreak
And every scar
Be a picture that reminds you
Who has carried you this far
‘Cause love sees farther than you ever could
In this moment heaven’s working
Everything for your good

Tell your heart to beat again
Close your eyes and breathe it in
Let the shadows fall away
Step into the light of grace
Yesterday’s a closing door
You don’t live there anymore
Say goodbye to where you’ve been
And tell your heart to beat again
Your heart to beat again
Beat again

Oh, so tell your heart to beat again

Refuel your love tank

Love is like a glass of water, every time we spent it out, it takes us energy to consume the water. The more you spent, the faster the water goes out. Until a point that all water is gone, your love is empty and you feel so difficult to love again. Therefore, we have to keep refuelling the water in order to keep our love going.

Yet, when you are thirsty, you drink more than what you need to consume in normal situation. When you are deeply in love with somebody, you give out all of your heart loving them and spend all of your energy on him. If either one of you in the relationship fails to devote as much as the others, love loses balance and the water will consume faster than the rate it is refilled. When all the water goes out, our heart is empty and it is difficult for us to spend love again. Many of us, me included, are afraid and tired to get into another relationship because we have no “love energy” to keep us to fall into another person. We are so passive to refill our love tank because we are afraid to get hurt again if we pour the water into the glass again.

“In a long-distance flight, a jet has to refuel.”

After my last relationship failed, my love glass is so empty, which is just like a desert with nothing can grow there. I started to occupy myself with different activities because I could stop my brain and heart for a moment when I kept myself busy. True, I developed a lot of new habits which are really good for me. However, these activities take me so much energy. My time is so packed that I do not even have time to rest and let my mind to be stable for a while, and I have no energy to refuel my desert-like love tank. My energy tank is consuming at a rate faster than it restore.Imagine someone flying a jet saying, “I don’t need to refuel!” The jet would crash and burn. In a long-distance flight, a jet has to refuel.  In this healing journey, it is a long battle which requires a lot of energy to overcome different  obstacles. We should not force ourselves to reach our maximum in the early stage and then we will be so strengthless to deal with the temptations later on. And all of you know, devil always attack us in the weakest time, we should always get ourselves refreshed and charge ourselves back to the highest energy level whenever we start to lose balance.

“Love never gives up, never losses faith, is always hopeful and endures through every circumstances” – 13:7 1 Corinthians. Whenever my energy level is being restored, then I have to ability to refuel my love tank back to the normal level, and believes that love is gonna work in my life again.

 

Accountable Partner(s)

 

Finding an accountable partner actually is more difficult than find a life long partner. A good accountable partner can help you grow, can make you become matter and most importantly, can make help you strengthen your faith and thoughts and let go of all the negative emotions. It is not just someone whom you love to hang out with, someone who entertain you in your good times, a responsible accountable partner can bring you satisfaction from inside to outside, allowing you to become a better person.

“Be friend with people who are close to your heart, not just physically close to you”

There are a lot of temptation in our life and a lot of people who are “fun” to hang out with. They persuade you to have a crazy night out, forgetting all the sadness happened in your work, seduce you to get addict to a lot of bad habits. However, after that slight moment of happiness, you will even feel more painful than before because the root of the problem remain unfixed. But what “King David was alone the evening that Satan tempted him into adultery with Bathsheba” – (2 Samuel 11). The Bible tells us we fight a war not of flesh but of the spirit, “against powers and spiritual forces who threaten us”-  (Ephesians 6:12).  In the toughest time in your life, there are a lot of devils appear around you, and this is the most vulnerable time that you will fall into the enemies’ trap. Because change in spirit in you heart is tough and we tend to seek an easy way out to temporarily make us relieved. In contrary, your toughest moment in your life maybe a moment when you can restart yourself completely, given that you find good accountable partner(s).

“God can give you a strong and faithful heart to overcome all the difficulties”

Proverbs 27:17 says, “Iron sharpens iron; so a man sharpens his friend’s countenance.” Being the right people around you, surround yourself with accountable people can make you grow faster than you expected. It is because we can share the same goal together and one falls down, the other will bring him/her up. Most importantly, it’s who is close to your heart. There is no one who can understand you more than our Father does, he knows all your past and knows what you are suffering. He listens, and directs you in a way that is good for you. He gives you a strong and faithful heart to overcome all the challenges ahead and helps you stay away from all the temptations.“Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand” (Ephesians 6:13).

What is accountability?

Accountability is a helping-each-other-out sort of relationship where we help each other achieve goals by asking the question, “Did you do what you said you would do?” Or in the case of breaking a habit–did you not do what you said you wouldn’t do?With Christian accountability, the goals are often related to our relationship with God and others: doing something (or not doing something) so we can love God and others better.

When you found accountable partner(s), you can feel like it is better than any other friends you have. We work out together, know God together, try something new together and any other things that can make us become a better one. When either one of us are falling out of track, we will use his wisdoms to pull me back on right track. This is how we call good accountable partner(s)!

My favourite verses these days,

Ecclesiastes 4:9-12New International Version (NIV)

Two are better than one,
    because they have a good return for their labor:
¹⁰ If either of them falls down,
    one can help the other up.
But pity anyone who falls
    and has no one to help them up.
¹¹ Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm.
    But how can one keep warm alone?
¹² Though one may be overpowered,
    two can defend themselves.
A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.

If you found an accountable partner, he/she is just like a mirror of you!